Internal Causes of Bad Behavior

Document Everything

Make Contact With The Parents/Legal Guardians

"What can you do to help me?"

Causes Of Bad Discipline Problems By Students

Keep Your Eyes Open

External Causes of Bad Behavior

Explain To Students What Is Expected Of Them

Separate Out The "Bad Eggs"

Follow Through With Your Promise To Discipline

Disciplining Kids At School

If you are responsible for running a school, then you are probably already aware that  maintaining proper discipline can sometimes be a major problem.  Kids don't always behave as they should.  Kids who behave badly end up disrupting the learning atmosphere, which is so important to the education and well-being of your students.  Developing a school wide discipline system is therefore an important part of running an orderly and productive school.

When trying to develop a school wide discipline system, you might well find that the "Pareto Principle", or "80/20 Rule", can be applied to your situation.   This principle, when applied to developing a school wide discipline system, predicts that 80% of your discipline problems (or more) will be caused by only 20% of your students - the "bad eggs".  Knowing this, one of your first objectives should be to find out just who these problematic "bad egg" students are.

As a school administrator, you are not likely to be able to go into your students' homes to  make sure that they are getting proper discipline and direction in the home.  Nevertheless, this is not generally necessary.  The reason for this, is that the children whom you see behaving badly at school are generally the same ones who have not been disciplined correctly at home.  The reverse is usually the case as well:  the children who are well disciplined at home will almost always cause less trouble at school.

The basic issue here is whether or not these children have learned to respect authority.  A child who never really learns to respect authority at home will usually cause trouble at school.  This is because such a child will not naturally respect the authority of either you or of your subordinates.  I have seen cases firsthand where a few such unruly students at school will attempt to lead a whole class into turmoil and rebellion.

1)______________________________

In answering this question, let me repeat what I said earlier:  you must learn to recognize the "bad eggs" in school.  This will usually not be too difficult if you are willing to work at it a bit.  It is a rare case for a child at school to be "good" ..."good"..."good", and then suddenly go "bad".   Usually those "bad" kids will make it known to you themselves, (often right from the start on the first day of school).   Bad kids will reveal themselves to you by either overtly rebelling, or by demonstrating their bad attitudes.

Once you have a good idea of who those "bad kids" are, you must then make plans to control such kids, and develop a "plan of attack" as it were.   Here are some ideas which you might be able to use in developing such a plan.

2)_______________________________

This personal contact will help you later.  Some kids who start out with bad behavior at school, start behaving better later on (after they learn that you have developed a working relationship with one of more of their parents).  These relationships can also have the benefit of helping you to learn more about the backgrounds of these children.

Often bad kids will not open up to you directly, to tell you "where they're really at", because you are an authority figure, (i.e. you are "The Enemy").  Therefore, by talking to one or both of the parents, you can find out some of this "missing" information about the child's history, behavior patterns, and likes and dislikes.

Developing a relationship with one or more of the parents might also help you should you some day need to confront the child in front of his or her parent or parents.  This is because a natural tendency among parents who raise "brats" is to defend such children against you, making it more difficult for you to correct such a child in front of them.

Such a parent might naturally feel like telling you that they don't believe you by using words along the lines of: "Oh, Johnny would never do that!"; "He is always such a good boy"; or, "I don't know where he learned to talk like that!"  If you develop a relationship with the parents, such parents will be less likely to give you excuses in front of their kids.

3)________________________________

Doing this will definitely help you to reap some benefits.  One benefit is that the child will not be able to say, "I didn't know" when he or she is caught doing something wrong.  Also, some children may fear to do "wrong", if they know beforehand what will happen to them if they are bad.  Likewise, such a warning puts you "in charge", so that you are seen as "making the rules", rather than letting the bad kids make the rules.

Children, even (and especially) those who habitually rebel in school, still need such guidance.  In fact, there have been several studies conducted during the last few years concluding that children need and appreciate having rules and boundaries made clear to them.  These study results have come to light as many have gone back to trying the "old fashioned" way of doing things, since they have reaped only confusion (at best) and disruptive behavior (at worst), by blindly following the dictates of Psychology.   If kids have no idea of what is expected of them, they are more likely to act out whatever "crazy" thought comes to their mind, including possibly some pretty bad behavior.

4)_____________________________

Murphy's Law says, "Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong."  Put in another way, as the Boy Scouts say, you should always "be prepared."  The problem of course, is that schools are often understaffed.  Just who is it on your staff that is able to "document everything"?  Nevertheless, the basic principle still applies.  When it comes to exercising discipline, you often need some corroborating records in order to verify that a "bad" child was habitually bad - that this was not just a one-time problem.  Documentation can also help to give you at least some protection against any possible legal action, should it come to that.

5)_______________________________

Few things can cause you to lose respect and overall control so quickly as "word getting around" that you are an "easy" teacher or administrator, and that you do not follow through with your threats of punishment.  Now, I know that everyone wants to give a kid a second chance.  It is not as if you can never give a kid a second chance.  Giving second chances however, should never imply to such kids a lack of punishment for their bad behavior.

Instead, punishment should usually be "in degrees".  A child who does the same thing a second time should usually get a harsher punishment than he or she got for doing it the first time, and so on.  Otherwise, kids can develop a "tolerance" for your discipline, knowing that "that's all that will happen do me if I do this."  "No Fear" is then what you get from such kids, and bad behavior, which will surely follow such a fearless attitude.

6)_______________________________

Watchful people are more likely to catch bad behavior than those who are just "doing their job".  You should try to observe what is "really going on" with the students on campus.  This means that you should also try to listen to kids, to hear what they are saying to each other.

Nevertheless, the "good kids" will often be too shy or too scared to come to you and complain about the bad behavior of some of the students.  If a good student looks troubled, then perhaps you should go up to the student and ask him or her, "How are you doing?"  By asking such a question, you may well find out from such a student about unreported bad behavior by "school bullies", since not all such bullies do their bad deeds out in the open right "under your nose".

I remember a school where some "normal-looking" kids were actually "hitting up" the kids for their lunch money in an alley which many kids had to go through to get to school in the morning.  These bad kids got away with this behavior for quite a long time, because the victims were too scared to tell anyone about it.

Another reason for these bad kids not getting caught was that they 'hit up" their victims away from the campus.  Nevertheless, the kids affected by this "bullying" often sat out their lunches and didn't eat, which should have provided a clue to the watchful eye of a teacher, administrator, or aide had they been closely observing such kids.

7)___________________________________

Two bad kids who are allowed to sit next to or near each other will generally render a worse result than the sum of all of their combined "badness".  This is because such kids will often encourage and cultivate the "badness" in each other.  Therefore, when you learn who the bad kids are, try to keep them apart from each other as much as is practically possible.

Also, if you think that some "not-so-bad" kids might be unduly influenced by such bad kids, try to keep the bad kids away from those "not-so-bad" kids.  Generally, such isolation of "bad" kids will help you in your attempts at developing a school wide discipline system.

There are many other ideas that you can use in developing a school wide discipline system.  Many ideas tend to work.  Some others tend to work only in certain situations.  If you wish to succeed though, you should be consistent.

There are many good plans that will work, but even a good plan needs proper preparation, as well as consistent execution.  Nevertheless, succeeding at this task is important, because such success will help your students to learn more in school. 

8)___________________________________

 A "wild" school situation with many "bad" kids is obviously not conducive to learning.  Bad kids are not always correctable, of course.  But why are bad kids "bad" in the first place?  The reason that kids are bad comes from two sources, internal and external. 

Both the internal and external causes of bad behavior should be examined, in order to have a more complete understanding of the nature of children, and the reasons why they might try to cause problems at school.

9)__________________________________

Let's look at the external causes first.  Such external reasons for children being bad generally relate to their environment.  If a child is not disciplined correctly, then he or she will be more likely on average to behave badly, including at school.

If children do not feel loved by anyone, then they will be less likely to care if they hurt other kids.  A child who is beaten at home by his or her parents will be more likely to try to beat up other kids at school.  A child who does not get much attention at home might try to get attention at school by doing "foolish" things.

A child who is not encouraged to excel at school by a parent or "mentor" will be more likely to behave badly as well.  A child who eats too much sugar or other sweets or caffeinated beverages will have a harder time sitting still in school.  Lastly, a child who is around "bad" kids will generally behave worse than a child who is around "good" kids.

10)_________________________________

The external environment, however, is only part of the story.  Bad children are bad because they are bad inside, bad by their very nature - "bad to the bone" as some kids like to say.  The old "Puritanical" term for this natural badness in kids (and also in adults) is "total depravity".

Children are not naturally good.  They are naturally bad, and come out of the womb doing evil things as a result of their inherently evil nature.  Also, all children, no matter how well they have learned to behave outwardly, have nevertheless a "desperately wicked" heart within them:

"The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." (Psalms 58:3)

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)

Many school administrators never really learn to understand student discipline, because they never grasp the fact that children are naturally bad, not naturally good.  (I realize that this is a pretty controversial statement).

Psychology has been teaching educators for decades that kids are basically good, not bad.  Nevertheless, psychologists rarely agree with each other, either in what is basically wrong with bad kids or in what can be done to help such bad kids.  The lack of real answers to the real needs of kids by such "Freudian" thinkers should demonstrate that they really do not have the answers.

The reason that physiologists do not have real and effective answers on how to discipline children, is that they do not understand the wickedness of the human heart.  If we understand that a child is naturally wicked deep down inside his or her heart, it is then much easier to understand why such a child would naturally want to do bad things at school.

But why are children (and adults as well) "desperately wicked"?  The answer is because "the heart is deceitful above all things".  Children are born with a wicked deceitful heart, a heart that does not want to be good, a heart that does not want God.  In their natural and totally depraved state they want to hurt other kids or adults.

This problem only gets worse as children get older and become adults.  The word in the Bible for such rebellious acts and attitudes is "sin".  "Behavior modification" can help a child to function at school and in society as a whole.  Nevertheless, proper training and behavior modification can never erase the basic problem of a sinful heart, a heart in deep rebellion against God and against His Word, the Bible.

Sin then, is really the main problem for everyone, including students.  The reason for this being such a big problem is that sin must be punished by a Righteous and Holy God.  As an administrator, you must punish bad behavior.  God must also punish such sin and bad behavior as well.  God would be neither fair nor consistent with His nature if He did not punish sin.  The Bible says:

"But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone:  which is the second death." (Revelation 21:8)

The sins of bad students must be punished.  Your sins must be punished as well.  The punishment by God for your sins is the "Lake of Fire":

"For the wages of sin is death;  but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23)

The Good News (or "Gospel") is that Jesus died to pay for your sins.  If you trust Jesus, then you will not need to go to the Lake of Fire and burn there for all Eternity when you die.  Jesus will pay for your sins with his own blood.

Jesus loves you and wants you to go to Heaven with Him when you die.  You can have "eternal life" with Jesus in Heaven when you die if you will trust Jesus to wash away your sins with His blood.  If you put it off, and therefore reject Jesus, the Lake of Fire will be your future destiny.  Trust Jesus today and let Him forgive your sins.

(the Internet)

b) Answer the questions about the text:

1. What is implied by the notion “bad eggs” in the text?

2. What is the most important issue in maintaining the discipline at school?

3. How can you recognize the “bad eggs”?

4. What is a natural tendency among parents of trouble makers? What are possible ways to deal with such a situation?

5. Why is it important to make rules clear to children beforehand?

6. What is the purpose of documentation in exercising discipline?

7. What can cause you to lose respect?

8. Why are bad kids difficult to catch?

9. How can separating out the “bad eggs” can help?

10. Why is it important for a teacher to be consistent?

11. What are internal and external causes of bad behaviour?

12. Did you have discipline problems during your student teaching?

13. What were they caused by?

Exercise 17: Translate the sentences from Russian into English, use your Active Vocabulary.

1) Для студентов МГОСГИ педагогическая практика - обязательная часть учебного курса. 2) Во время педпрактики будьте готовы, что вас могут попросить заменить заболевшего учителя-штатника. 3) Часто урок начинают с организационных вопросов. 4) Каждый студент-практикант дает открытые уроки, но не следует расценивать это как тяжкое наказание. 5) Если вы хотите улучшить свои педагогические навыки, узнать о новых методических приемах и усовершенствовать свой стиль преподавания, чаще посещайте открытые уроки своих коллег, консультируйтесь с более опытными учителями, методистами, посещайте семинары, конференции и читайте педагогическую литературу. 6) Умение установить контакт, получить отдачу от учащихся, а также поддерживать дисциплину в классе - залог успеха каждого учителя. 7) По списку в классе было 26 человек, но в тот день 4 человека отсутствовали. 8) Нарушители дисциплины в классе постоянно болтают, бездельничают, огрызаются на замечания учителя, выкрикивают с места; с такими учащимися очень велика вероятность потерять контроль над собой и начать кричать, однако это не выход. 9) И учитель-тиран, и слабохарактерный учитель одинаково неспособны держать класс под контролем. 10) Если вы сумеете преодолеть первоначальные страхи и сомнения, взять себя в руки, а также заинтересовать всех учащихся и вовлечь их в работу, то урок пройдет гладко и быстро и не будет казаться затянутым. 11) Отзывчивые ученики готовые к работе и сотрудничеству всегда тянут руку еще до того, как учитель спросит желающих выполнить то или иное задание. 12) Учитель отвечает не только за учебный процесс, но и за внеклассные мероприятия. 13) Вашу педагогическую практику будут оценивать методист, учитель-предметник, классный руководитель и даже завуч или директор школы.